If you increase the minimum wage to say £10 per hour. Loads of people would be made redundant as employers couldn't afford to pay that level of wages. Also everybody who is already above the current minimum wage would want pay rises to be above the new minimum wage. So inflation would take off.

Interesting if you removed all individual income tax and NI contribution up to current NMW then they would be pretty much taking the same net pay as someone would earn on the 'real' living wage...

For some reason that isn't the direction the Living Wage Foundation seem to want to lobby it is all about shaming businesses paying the mandatory minimum wage.

If you did lift NI contribution thresholds and personal allowance thresholds there would automatically be lifted accordingly as they would get a tax/NI benefit...

Obviously there would be a decrease in tax revenues but I guess if the real living wage is truly the real living wage there would be fair argument to remove a significant number of in work benefits perhaps...

That was completely off topic but it was something I was intrigued enough about earlier when I saw another "we just want business to pay fairly for a fair days work" status and I thought 'you are just moaney and annoying'.

Doesn't anyone think that it's good to have a REAL choice in policies between Tories & Labour? No matter what you think of Corbyn's politics, when Bliar took over Labour, you couldn't get a cigarette paper between their policies & Tory.

Darlo_Pete wrote:You always need an effective opposition, unfortunately under Corbyn Labour aren't delivering. Perhaps after the election and Corbyn's gone, the they may elect someone to bring Labour out of the cold.

Andy Burnham would be my choice, though it seems Labour are determined to stick with the likes of Corbyn, McDonnell and Abbott until the bitter end irrespective of the wider picture.

Corbyn was actually here (in York) today, and now apparently there'll be a Question Time featuring him and May through here too. We must be more marginal than I thought.

Jazz Maverick wrote:If I win the 50/50 draw I'm going to use the money to pay a tramp to throw dog s*** at you.

Labour's leaked manifesto pledge to remove student loans, could be another nail in Jenny Chapman's chances of being re-elected, as hundreds of staff work at Student Loans and their jobs will probably be lost if Labour are elected.

Darlo_Pete wrote:Labour's leaked manifesto pledge to remove student loans, could be another nail in Jenny Chapman's chances of being re-elected, as hundreds of staff work at Student Loans and their jobs will probably be lost if Labour are elected.

I must have missed that one. I've seen they're pledging to scrap tuition fees, but where has scrapping student loans come from? Students will surely still need maintenance loans regardless of tuition fees?

Darlo_Pete wrote:Sorry I haven't read the manifesto, but I perhaps wrongly assumed that student loans would be coming to an end.

Tuition fees and student loans are different.

Tuition fees are paid to the Uni to teach them, student loans are the money they're given to live on and buy study materials (in theory at least). However all of this is grouped into one lump sum to be paid back when they earn above the threshold amount.

The fees would end, but the loans wouldn't and would still need to be calculated and awarded. There might be less work, but not enough for mass redundancies I wouldn't imagine.

It's more where Diane Abbott expects to find the £7 billion from to fund it that's the issue.

Jazz Maverick wrote:If I win the 50/50 draw I'm going to use the money to pay a tramp to throw dog s*** at you.

Darlo_H wrote:It's more where Diane Abbott expects to find the £7 billion from to fund it that's the issue.

I'll be honest that is the least of my question marks over Diane Abbott.

Not a lot in the manifesto can't really get behind. The only bits I think I am dubious about are how tax cuts in welfare are reversed. The problem Corbyn has is not his policies it's the people around him.

Darlo_H wrote:It's more where Diane Abbott expects to find the £7 billion from to fund it that's the issue.

I'll be honest that is the least of my question marks over Diane Abbott.

True, though by her standards the fact that you said that now means you're a woman hating racist.

Still find it odd that Conservatives are favourites to win Darlo though, I always thought that you could pin a red rosette to pretty much anything and the 'me Dad voted Labour' crowd would push them into power.

Jazz Maverick wrote:If I win the 50/50 draw I'm going to use the money to pay a tramp to throw dog s*** at you.

Commentary I'm seeing is all over the place. Tory lead for sure but suggestion that polls are moving in Labour favour following manifesto 'leak'. The polls were so far out last time out though it's hard to take them at anything but with a pinch of salt. The odds you would assume are based on polls plus betting patterns.

D.P. "Good call by May to call a snap election, the only downside is that Labour won't keep Corbyn after they lose the election."

Wrong and wrong. May's decision to call an unnecessary election was a monumental blunder for her, and possibly us too! Corbyn is now stronger, and who is actually in charge? What has been sorted out?

D.P. "This election could be the most one sided elections for many a year. All the marginal seats being talked about are labour seats not conservative one's that labour need to win to win the election"

Out of the 20 marginal seats that May visited, she lost 18 of them. Talk about the kiss of death!

D.P. "Labour's problems can be shown by my daughter-in-law. She is eligible to vote for the first time and hates Theresa May, blames her for everything that she perceives is going wrong with the country. But she won't vote at the General Election, as she doesn't think Labour has any chance,"

Whether you agree with Corbyn or not - his policies were attractive to the younger voter and this time round a lot more of them made the effort to vote. At this election the young people HAVE made a difference. It doesn't take much effort to vote BTW, and I think young people should vote - as long as they have a little think first

D.P. "... the Conservatives will win the election hands down, as the opposition is all over the place."

It turned out that May's performance and decision making were 'all over the place'.

Mr Singh said this " I'm not expecting to get back any of the money I've already put in, I'm prepared to write it off for the future of the club. I'm not hanging in to make any kind of financial gain in the short or long term - if someone was prepared to come in and take the club off my hands, I'd be more than willing to discuss it"